 Abledon Arnair is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. Additional support for Abledon Arnair is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together. Welcome to this edition of Abledon Arnair, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently able. I've always been your host, Lauren Siler. Arlene is off today. We would like to welcome Patrick Donegan, interim executive director of Good Samaritan in Barry. Welcome to Abledon Arnair, and thank you to our sponsors. Tell me the missions and goals of Good Samaritan, because I know you guys are doing a bunch of good things now. Yeah, we do a whole lot of stuff, but our main goal, our main objective is to provide emergency shelter for people that need it, for a number of different reasons. Well, okay, when we say emergency shelter, what exactly, for those that don't know, what exactly does that mean? That means that we see individuals that have no place safe to sleep that night, whether we see people that are fleeing domestic violence, people that have been kicked out of the place, they live, maybe they're staying with people and can't stay there anymore. There's a number of different reasons, but if somebody doesn't have a safe place to stay at night, we try to provide shelter for them, a safe place, a warm meal, a shower. Those vital things are important. Now you guys are in Barrie, and I've interviewed you guys before we show some extra clips, but how many beds is in the Barrie facility, and then go through Montpelier, what you guys are doing now? So we have 30 in Barrie at the Seminary, we have our main location is the 105 North Seminary, we revisited before and did an interview, then we have a seasonal emergency shelter that's also in Barrie at the Heading Church, and there are 14 beds there. Do you separate women and men, how does that work within the shelter? That shelter, typically at our main shelter in Seminary Street, there's women's dorms and men's dorms, and then there's an area to set up cots that we try to accommodate couples if they like to be there. And the Heading Church happens to be all men, we see more men than women actually for single adults that are looking for shelter, so we have more typically more a male than female guest. So Heading Church is mostly all male this year and last year, we could accommodate a female there if we needed it and somebody needed a shelter and they were comfortable with it, but that's a 14. Some of the churches besides having the shelter there, they also provide meals as well. Sure, so that's a big, and Barrie actually, there's breakfast provided almost every single day in Montpelier, there is a lunch provided almost every day, we provide bus passes for free to people. I know you guys have had plenty of fundraisers where organizations like GMTA have given bus passes, have given laundry detergent and other things to you guys that's vitally needed. So we try to accommodate guests, so if transportation is a problem, they can access these meals that happen in Montpelier or if they're staying in Montpelier and need to get to Barrie because a lot of the services that are provided actually are through Barrie, the McFarland building with economic services and social security and stuff like that are. Now what exactly, if a person needs certain things like social security, food stamps, how does your intake process work? So when an individual comes to us, we have a very thorough intake procedure and we try to first make sure the person's okay and see if they need any immediate medical attention or anything like that. Try to meet the person where they're at and then we let people get settled in first, but we do have an intake procedure to see what people have if they have food stamps, if they have money coming in, but really when people are coming in in a crisis type situation, as you can imagine, if you have nowhere to stay. Define crisis, what exactly is the definition in your opinion? Well a crisis can mean a lot of different things, but a crisis as far as being homeless, think about the middle of winter in Vermont having nowhere to stay, to me that's a crisis. So what we try to do is make that person as comfortable as possible, let them get a warm shower, let them have a meal, then we have an employee that works with us through Washington County Mental Health. We typically like everyone within three days to meet that individual. He's great and he'll help us decide if the person maybe needs to get some medical attention, whether they need to touch base with Washington County Mental Health, drug and alcohol, if they need a counselor to help with that kind of stuff, and then they're assigned a housing coordinator, which is kind of a housing coordinator slash case coordinator. You know it's a small non-profit that we run. Small non-profit, but you're doing bigger things. So we have to wear a lot of hats, and so we try to provide case coordination, all of us in our own way, and part of that is figuring out what people need to kind of take those next steps to find the path away from homelessness. And our goal for every individual is first to shelter them, to have people stabilized and comfortable and safe, then to figure out, help figure out what needs to be done so that you're not in this situation again. Talk about the ending homelessness in 2020, because I know that's been a large situation within Washington County. That's actually a state thing that's not just Washington County, and the goal is, you know, what we're finding is that, you know, we're trying to collaborate with our other community partners. You know, there's amazing organizations out there. Capstone does so much for people, and does so much for the homeless population. They're a huge ally of ours. What does Capstone do? Capstone does so many different things. They help housing, case coordinating. I mean, they do the Head Start program. I mean, I could go on and on, but they, with us specifically, you know, they help us get our people into the right programs, and Washington County Mental Health, you know, Vermont Housing, you know, we work with a lot of different agencies, and there's agencies across the state that the goal is to end homelessness by 2020. And by collaborating with one another, we're hoping to make that a possibility, and finding that not duplicating services. Exactly. What do you mean by duplicating services? So if, say, you ran an organization, you know, right down the road, and we were both trying to house the same person, and make so many people needing housing, it would make more sense for us to collaborate with one another and say, hey, okay, you're trying to house Jane Doe, and I'm trying to house Jane Doe. Why don't we put our resources together, and I'll work on this, and you work on this, and, you know, so that we're not doing the same thing. So you're not overstepping each other? Each other. We have limited resources in the state, and, you know, there's not a ton of people, and there's not a ton of revenue. So we have to be really smart with the dollars that we have, and that's one thing that Vermonters have been great at, is, I think, approaching the social issues in an intelligent manner, and using, you know, all the resources that we have to the fullest. Okay, now, you guys are expanding. I understand that there's, in Lemoyo County, there's a new shelter happening. Explain about that. Yep, so this year we're the fiscal manager overseeing a group in Lemoyo County that was a small grass roots kind of organization last year, and a very noble organization. They were just trying to take people, there's no homeless shelter in Lemoyo, and we're putting people in different churches and doing different things, and this year, you know, really kind of started working with us to become a bit more organized, you know, some help with the fiscal management, and stuff like that. Because I know a lot of churches are helping you guys, you know, put this together. It was extremely important. Yeah, without the faith-based community, all this would be very difficult. The area churches do a lot, but to circle back to Lemoyo, that actually, they're going to be opening in their space in the next week or so. So that's a huge thing. It's a beautiful space. There's a gentleman that owns a property that has donated the property to actually the sheriff in that county to be a shelter, which was just an amazingly, you know, positive thing for the homeless community with no one there. And so that's a huge step for Lemoyo County, you know, in that whole Morseville and Hyde Park area. So being special needs and being homeless might be a double-edged sword. Explain in your opinion, what are some of the misconceptions around, because when someone sees a homeless person, they might be afraid of them because of challenges. So explain some of the misconceptions that, so, you know, we can, you know, because homeless people are people as well, and there's just a stepping stone that they have to go through. So explain some of the misconceptions in your opinion. So I think, you know, you see the homeless person that, you know, Hollywood would portray, and you might see them as dangerous, or, you know, scary in some way, you know, you kind of cross to get on the other side of the street. There's a lot of people that work in this community that you see on a daily basis that are homeless that you would never know are homeless, that stay in our shelters and then go to work all day, that just for whatever reason ended up homeless, but are working really hard at transitioning out of homelessness. So, I mean, people end up homeless because of, maybe, you know, loss of income, loss of housing. How does one, and is there a catch-22 here? Like, how does one end up homeless? Well, there's a lot of different things. I mean, frankly, there's a lot of people that deal with severe mental health issues that aren't being helped. And maintaining a living space is very difficult for them with the other things that they're dealing with. There's a lot of folks that are dealing with, you know, addiction. And we're seeing, unfortunately, a lot more young people. And so we're seeing a lot more people that are, you know, 18, 19 to 25 that are in the shelter than ever before. So, do you see more within Good Samaritan? Is it more young people or young adults versus older adults? Because once you hit the older population? Yeah, I wouldn't say that. It kind of comes in waves. So, you know, homelessness affects all everybody. All ages. All ages. That type of thing. So, what are some of the future goals of Good Samaritan that you guys are working on besides these new places? You know, just continuing, you know, we always want to expand. You know, we've been really lucky a couple of years ago, the state made it possible for us to double in size. And we've been full, you know, in the winter. Our beds are full. So, you know, any chance we have to continue to make sure that no one's sleeping outside in these tough-from-out winters is really, first and foremost, our main goal. Now, I know that in 1986, Good Samaritan started. What was some of the backstory behind that? That was long before my time. But, it started as a small faith-based organization, just churches in the berry area, recognizing that there was a homeless problem in central Vermont and kind of stepping forward to trying to do what they could to help. Okay. So, if people wanted to come to Good Samaritan, you know, if they needed services, what is your address and phone number that people can reach out to you guys? Okay. Well, it's a 105 North Seminary Street. Is there anything that you would like to say before we end the show that's real important for people to know about Good Samaritan? No, just, you know, we rely on donations a lot. And I needed a little bit that people can provide to help, even if it's just a small amount, really helps us, you know, over a third of our operating money comes from donations. What type of donations? Food, because I understand that you guys have, you know, people donate dinners, you know, they can donate food, they can donate clothes. What exactly, what type of donations are you guys taking right now? Food, clothes, monies, always huge. Obviously, we have to keep the lights on. So. Okay. Well, I would like to thank you for joining me on this edition of Able Dinner Nair. For more information on Good Samaritan, you can log on to their website at www.goodsamaritanhaven.org. This puts an end to this edition of Able Dinner Nair. I'm Lauren Seiler. Arlene is off today. Thank you to our sponsors. See you next time. Able Dinner Nair is sponsored in part by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. Additional support for Able Dinner Nair is sponsored in part by Washington County Mental Health Services, where hope and support come together.